SAN BERNARDINO: Council OKs interim bankruptcy plan

After two marathon late-night meetings where San Bernardino City Council members remained deadlocked over steep budget cuts, they finally approved a plan Wednesday, Sept. 5, to guide the city through bankruptcy.

The proposal, approved 5-2 with Councilmen John Valdivia and Fred Shorett opposed, modifies elements of a staff proposal that included $22.4 million in cuts and slashed the city budget by 30 percent.

It also left the most contentious issue — cuts to the Fire Department that would close three fire stations on a rotating part-time basis — to be decided later.

The council agreed to allow Fire Chief Paul Drasil to return in two weeks with a comparison of his proposal and that made by the union representing firefighters.

Drasil had called the union plan, which cuts battalion chiefs, unworkable, but some on the council adamantly opposed his proposal that included rolling brown-outs.

The compromise by council members — who had sniped at each other Tuesday and continued to raise their voices at times Wednesday — came after Councilman Rikke Van Johnson proposed including parts of the staff plan with recommendations by council members Chas Kelley and Wendy McCammack.

It also came after a series of lengthy parliamentary moves where council members went back and forth on their votes and agreed to include Kelley’s proposal to look at contracting out some of the city's trash services.

That issue had been a source of division in recent weeks, with Mayor Pat Morris vetoing an earlier vote to do so last month.

The so-called pre-pendency plan will form the basis of a future plan to be submitted to bankruptcy court. The city filed for bankruptcy Aug. 1 due to a $45.8 million budget deficit and a cash-flow shortage that left officials unsure if they could meet payroll.

The staff plan called for reducing police and fire services to their most basic function, closing three of four city libraries and two community centers, and contracting out some duties such as park maintenance and custodial service.

However, the changes added by McCammack include delaying closure of one library branch and community center, removing cuts to code enforcement and increasing revenues through business registrations and parking enforcement.

The changes also call for postponing contracting out custodial service until a cost comparison is done.

With the changes, city officials could not provide a figure for total cost savings, originally estimated at $22.4 million.

In any case, more cuts will be needed as the original plan only partially addressed the city's deficit, said interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller.

“The city is facing deficits of major proportions, not only in this fiscal year but future fiscal years, if there's not major restructuring of the city's budget,” she said.